Have you ever wondered what would be required in order to create a just society? Let us think from the perspective of societal ground zero. We have not been in existence for the past few thousand years. We have no ancestors to direct us, no rules to follow, and no experience to guide us. Imagine that we have not even come to be yet. Consider for a moment that society has yet to be established. Assume there are hypothetical homunculi with the sole task of devising the goals, the guiding light, for society. How would societal goals be designed so they are fair and just for all? In what follows, I will attempt to portray the philosophy of John Rawls with regard to the theory of societal justice. My aim is convey Rawls’ conception of justice. I will discuss his original position of equality and how the essential veil of ignorance collaborates with the original position to arrive at a societal ground zero. I will also address the two principles that Rawls believe would emerge from the original position to guide a just society. Rawls aspires to investigate and present a conception of justice. He believes that, in order to create a just society, we must begin in a hypothetical place with no predetermined conceptions of social or economic status. No person would know his place in society, or what social or economic class he fits into. No one would be aware of his own intelligence or abilities. Further still, no person would know what assets or disadvantages were distributed to him by chance, generation, or inheritance. This hypothetical position of unknowing would create an “original position of equality” (Rawls, p. 498). From this original position, everyone is equal in all conceivable societal and economic terms. In this initial position of equality, there would be totally free, completely rational homunculi that are interested in fostering their own interests. Rawls believes the free, rational, and self-interested homunculi in this hypothetical initial position of equality would form an original agreement. The object of this original agreement would be to arrive at a set of guiding principles to serve as a template for a just society. The guiding principles would dictate all further agreements among people in the society. The principles would stipulate how social cooperation is formed and sustained. These principles would also regulate the types of government that could be instituted. Rawls refers to this regard of the guiding principles of justice as “justice as fairness” (Rawls, p. 498). In this original position of equal liberty, thinking of justice as fairness, the homunculi would collaborate to conceive a set of principles of justice to guide their society. Rawls also insists that the principles of justice must be decided upon through a “veil of ignorance” (Rawls, p. 498). This means the homunculi do not know where they would end up in society. They do not know their eventual social or economic class; nor do they know what fortunes, or lack thereof, lie ahead. They are completely unaware of quantitative or qualitative characteristics of inheritance. They have no idea of what their positions in society would be. One homunculus may turn out to be a doctor with seemingly endless assets, and another may end up as a homeless person scavenging for food to survive. With this blindness of future stance in society, Rawls believes the homunculi in the original position would agree to principles of justice that are fair for all. The homunculi, in an original position of equality, through a veil of ignorance, would want to create a set of guiding principles of justice for society. Rawls believe two specific principles would materialize that would create a fair and beneficial society for all. The first principle would uphold equality in the allocation of basic rights and duties. The second principle would insist that inequalities are only just if they consequent in benefits for everyone, especially the least-privileged. According to...

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...﻿Justice as Fairness
JohnRawls responds to the question of justice with his own theory of Liberalism. Liberalism utilizes a social contract as a conceptual basis from which moral reasoning can be considered just. Rawls claims that the best way to look at morality is by referring to the principles, which govern society, based on an initial situation of equality. He explains this initial situation of equality by proposing a hypothetical original position: “The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the objet of an original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons would accept in an initial situation of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association” (Rawls, 204). This original situation is distinguished by a veil of ignorance under which individual bias is removed due to the unawareness of one’s future position in society. The purpose of the original situation is to determine the principles of justice that would result from people free from the distinctions of society. Rawls uses the principles of moral justification that are established from this original position to create a procedural form of justice.
In establishing this theory of “justice as fairness”, Rawls focuses on two key...

...﻿Theories of Justice
Introduction
The theme of justice is the most relevant in contemporary political philosophy. A political philosopher to deal with the theme of justice has to take into prior consideration what is usually called distributive justice (or social justice, hereafter dj). This choice depends on both conceptual and historical reasons. From the conceptual point of view, the notion ofjustice coincides first of all with the notion of justice as equitable consideration of interests and equal treatment. From the historical point of view, the conceptual priority of dj is explained by the struggle between capitalism and communism that has characterized the political theory and practice during the second part of 20th century. This means furthering a treatment of the idea of justice as (re)-distribution, which focuses on the socio-economic problems in terms of liberty-equality and class difference.
A direct implication of this approach is dealing only at later time with the idea of justice as ‘recognition’, an idea the content of which is typically symbolic and relates to cultural and status issues more than to class issues (Walzer 1983, Rawls 1993, Honneth and Fraser 2003, Taylor 1994). Even in this case, there are both conceptual and historical reasons. From the first point of view, it is...

...The concept of justice has been the focus of normative political theory over the past 50 years, and JohnRawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) is widely seen as the most important attempt during that period to articulate a set of institutions and distributional outcomes that rational individuals would see as legitimate. Rawls’ seminal work has spawned a veritable critical industry since its publication (Miller, 1999). His elaboration of his project and restatement of his theory of “justice as fairness” (Rawls, 2001) promise to sustain interest in his ideas.
This essay is an attempt to critically discuss and analyze JohnRawls’ (1921-2002) conception of justice. It seeks to also answer the question of what led him to perceive justice in the way that he did. In order to achieve this, a thorough introductory exposition of Rawlstheory will be carried out citing its content with the use of relevant definitions and examples. A conclusion will then be drawn from the discourse.
This essay therefore recognizes that Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness is thus an egalitarian theory of moral conduct which applies to all the obligations which individuals have toward each other. It further perceives it as a...

...RawlsTheory of Justice
A contemporary philosopher, JohnRawls (1921-2002), is noted for his contributions to political and moral philosophy. In particular, Rawls' discussion about justice introduced five important concepts into discourse, including: the two principles of justice, the “original position” and “veil of ignorance”. Rawls most famous work is, ATheory of Justice (1971) gives an introduction to this body of thought and he emphasises the importance justice has on governing and organising a society.
The problem arises by defining what the term means theoretically. One of two definitions can be used, the first being definition based on ones merit or lack thereof. This “merit theory” of justice uses merit to decide how an individual of the society will be treated based on the contribution to the society. The other is the “need theory” of justice where is it assumed every individual should help those in need or who are less privileged.
Attempting to balance the demands posed by these rival theories, Rawls maintained that inequalities in society can only be justified if they produce increased benefits for the entire society and only if those previously the most disadvantaged members of society are no worse off as...

...accounts of Justice normally begin by
stating a fundamental rule of Aristotle – Justice is to treat
equals equally and unequals unequally, and that unequal
treatment should be in proportion to the inequality. In
everyday life though, justice is seen as an attribute of law,
while all laws are not necessarily just. Many great socio-
political movements of the world have focused from time to
time on unjust laws eg Apartheid laws in South Africa and
Caste laws in India. Impartiality and fairness are understood
to be the two aspects of justice. But it would be misleading
to suggest that Justice refers solely to the fair application
of a rule. Some rules, though fairly applied, may produce
results repugnant to our intuitive conceptions of justice.
Though these are rules that do not discriminate, they cannot
be called ‘just’. Eg Indirect taxes like salt tax that all sections
of the society had to pay – it posed a burden for the poor
people and in that way, was not at all just.
Contemporary politics is to a great extent about who gets
what and why and the criteria commonly employed for
the distribution of goods and services are ‘desert’, ‘merit’
and ‘need’. The concept of desert refers to the actions of
men and women that result in special treatment either in the
form of rewards or n the form of punishments. Thus, justice
is linked with distribution and is a...

...﻿Chapter I
RAWLSTHEORY OF JUSTICE
1.1) Introduction
JohnRawls, a modern and one of the most influential philosophers, who held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and Fulbright Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford, published several books and many articles. He wrote a series of highly influential articles in the 1950s and ’60s that helped refocus on morals and political philosophy on substantive problems. He is widely regarded as one of the most important political philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. His work has greatly influenced modern political thought. He is chiefly known for his book ‘A Theory of Justice’, an effort to define social justice and for his theory of ‘justice as fairness’, which develops principles of justice to govern a modern social order. Rawls' theory provides a framework that explains the significance, in a society assumed to consist of free and equal persons, of political and personal liberties, of equal opportunity, and cooperative arrangements that benefit the more and the less advantaged members of society.
Rawls was dissatisfied with the traditional philosophical arguments about what makes a social institution just and about what justifies political or social actions and policies. The...

...BAC 223 (One) An essay on the Theory of justice by JohnRawls Mr. F D Bisika 7th March 2013 Steve Tseka – third year A-BAF/2013/1/45 Distance learning
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Critical discussion on the central features of JohnRawls’ Theory of JusticeJohnRawls is an American philosopher who was born in 1921 and died in the year 2002. In His books,Theory of Justice and Justice and fairness published in 1971 and 1958 respectively, Rawls is noted for being a social contract theorist in that he believes that our obligations merely arise from a form of contract that we enter into. Rawls begins by addressing two concepts, justice and fairness, which are seemingly different, but do share a common feature which is fundamental to both of them: the concept of mutual agreement. That is, when citizens are free to act and agree as a matter of social cooperation according to the conditions that are reasonably acceptable by all parties involved. The difference is that justice is something which one has no option as to whether they participate or not while fairness in the other hand, allows one to determine whether or not they will engage in the practice. Justice may be termed as not all-inclusive as it eliminates the subjective distinctions based...

...then conclude with a counter argument to the counter argument.
JohnRawls, using Kantian rationality, discusses ways to determine principles of social justice. He begins by making a clear distinction as to what defines the social justice used in his argument – “the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation”.Rawls then continues to introduce concepts such as the original position which pertains to the thought experiment he calls the veil of ignorance – the original position is a hypothetical state where members of society decide what the principles of justice are. To find the original position, the members must use the veil of ignorance in the sense of having ignorance toward class, intelligence, strength, and things alike, in order to prevent bias and in turn create a fair choice. With this in mind, Rawls sets forth to disprove utilitarianism within justice. He claims that utilitarianism is unjust for it does not respect the rights and liberties of all individuals - if slavery was beneficial to the majority, using utilitarianism logic, some would claim it is just. Rawls argues for the equality of rights; inequalities are justified only if they benefit the society as a whole. He makes a key distinction between the benefit of the majority,...